MTS to introduce smartphones for customers in July

MTS, the CDMA mobile services brand of Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), plans to introduce smartphones for its customers next month. The smartphone line-up will include BlackBerry, Windows and Android devices. The company plans to keep prices competitive. Leonid Musatov, chief marketing officer, SSTL, told Telecom Yatra at the sidelines of a press conference held here, “We plan to make smartphones available for our customers beginning this July. We’ll be extremely aggressive on the price front, we don’t intend to make vendor margin.”
He added, “We want to offer innovative offerings like dual technology smartphones. I also believe that Android is the most convenient way for a consumer to use mobile internet.” MTS will announce a few partnerships in the coming two to three months, which will focus on educating people on the use of mobile internet.
The CDMA operator also expects that the Russian government’s investment of $677 million (over Rs 3,000 crore) in the mobile operator will close soon. “The Russian parliament Duma has approved the proposal and four or five ministries are currently involved in finalising things. We expect to close it by the end of quarter three”, Vsevolod Rozanov, president and chief executive officer, SSTL, told reporters.
MTS currently provides CDMA mobile services in 12 of India’s 22 telecom service areas and has announced that it has crossed the five million subscribers mark in the country. To celebrate the occasion, the company also announced Unlimited MBlazer and Win Win packs. While the former allows users to access unlimited data for 30 days at a price of Rs 999, the Win Win pack offers a mix of various packages from which the users can choose the features they want.
Rozanov revealed that last month the operator successfully added nearly half a million subscribers and expects to double its subscriber base within few months.
Talking about the company’s future plans, Musatov said, “We expect to break even in 2013. The business is going in the right direction. Our primary aim is to become the primary SIM of our subscriber base. We’ll also be introducing some innovative value added services in a few months.”